jerza 2016
by thir13enth
Summary: a series of unrelated one-shots for Jerza Week 2016.
1. awkward

**notes:** happy Jerza Week 2016, everyone! i can't describe how excited i am to participate this year! i didn't start writing fairy tail until _after_ last year's Jerza Week so with much hip-hip-hooray i partake! but of course, even when I get the prompts with plenty of time, i still fail to pull through on time.

anyway, this is for prompt **embrace** for Jerza Week 2016:

* * *

 **awkward**  
 _She just needs to figure out where to put her arms._

* * *

 _ **9**_

When he falls, he falls hard and fast and right into her arms.

"Agh!" he yells, throwing up his arms to reduce his impact. However, nothing is really going to help stop Jellal—who decided to throw himself off into the air at the highest point of his swing to see how far he can fly—and Erza—who just happens to be at exactly where 'how far he could fly' is—from colliding into each other.

And so the physics happen and so as fate would also have it, Erza gets a full dose of Jellal recess break that day at school.

"I'm sorry!" he apologies, quickly pulling himself up. "Are you okay?"

He's also quick to take her hand and help her up, but she picks herself up onto her feet.

"I'm fine," she tells him, brushing dirt and bits of weird playground stuff off her.

"You're Erza, right?" He tries to make eye contact with her, but she's not really ready to introduce herself to her classmate—even if it is already her fourth day at the new school.

"Yeah," she replies nevertheless.

He gives her a wide smile, looking at her for a moment. "I'm going to call you Scarlet," he suddenly declares, almost proudly.

Erza's lips twist. Even as the new kid on the block, it isn't hard to notice that Jellal Fernandes has a tendency to make nicknames for people. Erza hasn't memorized all the names and faces yet, but she's pretty sure his entire group of friends has their own codenames—Sorano is Angel and Erik is Cobra—and she doesn't get exactly what the whole point is.

"You're so weird," she finally blurts.

He laughs twice. "Why?" He doesn't look the least bit offended by her remark. "It's because you have really pretty hair!"

Erza's caught off guard. "My hair?…" she murmurs, unconsciously her right hand twirls her scarlet tresses between her fingers.

His eyes suddenly widen and he points at her right forearm – "Hey!" he exclaims, taking said arm in both hands. "You _are_ hurt. I _did_ hurt you."

Jellal flips her arm around and she sees the small abrasion on her skin.

"It's fine," she tells him.

"I'm really sorry," he apologies, nevertheless, looking her straight into the eyes. "I should be more careful next time."

She isn't really sure what to say. _Thank you?_ She doesn't remember the last time anyone has told her sorry so genuinely. _I'm fine?_ She's never learned to say anything in response.

"Ah, um—" she replies instead, but she forgets everything she's thinking about when he suddenly presses his lips near the scrape and then wraps his arms completely around her, trapping her arms underneath his. He squeezes hard once before releasing her.

Erza is utterly confused. Why is he invading her space and what exactly does he think he's doing by awkwardly kissing her forearm and then hugging her?

"W-Why'd you do that?" she asks him.

"I don't know," he admits. "That's what my mom does when I get hurt."

They exchange a few blinks between each other and before someone calls out for him.

"Jellal! Wanna be It?" Sorano shouts at him, cupping her mouth with one hand and waving at him with the other.

Jellal turns back to Erza. "You should join us!" he suggests, inviting her to their game of tag.

She briefly looks beyond him to see her other classmates and hesitates, shaking her head.

He gives her a small smile. "Okay, maybe next time then," he says, giving her a quick wave goodbye before joining his friends.

Erza doesn't think any more of what has just happened, and when Mr. Makarov finally arrives her side to see if she's alright after "that troublesome Jellal crashed into her," she assures the teacher that she is "fine" and that "Jellal said sorry."

She has other things on her mind for the rest of the day – like getting home in time for the next episode of her favorite TV show or seeing the latest issue of her favorite fashion magazine – than to worry about Jellal Fernandes and his weird antics, but the next day when he shouts for Scarlet to join in the next dodgeball game, she finds herself smiling and joins in.

 _ **13**_

Backstage, it's fairly dark but even in the dusty yellow light, Jellal can very clearly see Erza's costume, and he immediately buckles over, laughing as quietly as he can so as not to disturb the rehearsal on the other side of the curtain.

When he laughs, he laughs hard, and he rolls over onto the hard wood floor, clutching his stomach.

"Stop laughing!" she hisses, feeling her entire face turn hot. She _knew_ he would make fun of her. She furrows her eyebrows, waiting for him to get ahold of himself. "Stop it!"

Eventually his hysterical fit fades off, and he sits up, wiping a tear from his eye. "You look cute, Scarlet," he says.

She feels her face boil hotter and she opens her mouth to admonish him but when she hears Natsu cough into the microphone on the other side of the curtain, she remembers to keep her voice down.

"I thought you were done calling me that after elementary school," she scolds. "We're in seventh grade now."

He gives her a nonchalant shrug. "Does it embarrass you?" he asks her.

She looks him straight in the eye and briefly ponders the question, before realizing that maybe she's more flustered about him calling her cute than calling her Scarlet.

"W-well, yeah," she affirms, and quickly changes the subject. She shoots him a glare. "Well, if anything, you should have been one of the actors—I don't understand why you got to be a techie."

He goes along with her turn in conversation. "This class play is supposed to help us 'branch out of our comfort zones,' remember?" he says, quoting their teacher. "It's just a one-time thing, Erza. You'll be fine."

"I am not fit for the stage. Have you seen me act?"

He looks lazily up at her, smiling again at the costume she's wearing.

"No," he replies. "But I still think you'll be a perfect Tree B."

She sighs with the reminder of her 'acting' role, flapping her hands up and down, rustling the leaves on her arms-now-branches. She shakes her head—the hollow of a tree trunk, the only visible part of her in the costume—to gently itch the uncomfortable fabric circling her face.

"I have to swing my branches around in time with the music," she continues. "And this suit is scratchy and hot and I can barely hear myself think because I'm so _nervous_ —"

"You'll be fine, Erza," he assures her.

"Yeah, but—"

Before she knows it, he's pulled himself up off the floor and has his arms around her, tree costume and all.

She'd hug him back but the branches are a little stiff.

"You'll be fine," he repeats, his voice—although through the fabric of the costume tree trunk—tickling her ear.

"I—" she starts, but is unable to finish. Why is it that whenever he hugs her, she can't figure out how to respond? Why is it that as awkward as she feels in his embrace, it feels just right? She still hasn't figured out what to say to him in these moments—it's been years since they literally bumped into each other in elementary school and yet all she's been able to say to him are scathing remarks—

"—treehugger," she thus jokes.

At this, he chuckles once, releasing her from his embrace. She catches her breath, smelling the shampoo off his hair briefly, but then out of the blue, he steps forward and tucking a fallen strand of her hair behind the seam of her costume.

"I only hug special trees," he tells her.

A moment. Then his ears prick up at the sound of Natsu finishing his monologue—one that took about twice as much time as it should have because, of course, the pink-haired teenager leaves memorization to the last minute—and he nods off in the direction of the stage.

"Well, there's your cue."

"Yeah." She nods and hustles to get into position.

The curtains draw. The backlights flicker. She braces herself as best as she can and tries to concentrate, but all she can think about is how comforting his arms feel.

Despite her distracted thoughts, she is surprised to find that she sways her branches in time with the music and that she does not mess up. Not even once.

 _ **18**_

Jellal doesn't say much of what he's feeling in words, but at least to Erza, his emotion are clear in the way that he shuffles in the hallways to get to his next class or in the way that he smiles with a little more effort when his friends tell him a funny story about their weekend.

Afterschool, she catches him in the parking lot just before he folds himself into the driver's seat to head straight home.

"You didn't get in, huh?" she asks him.

The flicker in his hazel eyes is enough for her to know the answer.

No, he wasn't accepted to that school that he has always wanted to attend—the one that _both_ his parents had graduated from, the one that he has been aiming for since he stepped into high school and got serious about his grades, the one that he's always imagined he would be.

She doesn't know what to say but she feels the overwhelming urge to hug him—it feels like it's the right thing to do—so she does, tiptoeing wrapping her arms around his neck—and only realizes the small miscalculation in her actions.

The embrace feels _very_ awkward, and perhaps it's because it's the first time that _she_ initiated—and well, maybe she's hugging him a little too high and his face, his mouth, his _lips_ are a little _too_ close to her cheek—but she's not going to reshuffle her arms around for the sake of her embarrassment. She quits thinking self-consciously—hugs with Jellal are always a little awkward, even for as long as they've known each other—and squeezes him tightly, as he always has for her when she needed his assurance.

He seems surprised at first but then moves both his arms to return the embrace, putting his arms around her waist and turning his face to the side to fit his chin over her shoulder.

"This isn't the end of the world, Jellal," she says. "Just because you didn't make it doesn't mean that you're a failure."

She feels him clutch her a little tighter.

"Thank you."

And of course, she hugs him again later in senior year when he makes the final decision to attend another school.

Her arms still haven't learned the lesson, and she accidentally finds herself hugging him a little too high again.

He still returns her embrace, all the same.

 _ **20**_

It's only been a year but for some reason he suddenly seems so much more _different_.

Was Jellal always this tall? Were his shoulders always this broad? Were his eyes always this hazel?

She feels guilty that maybe she's completely forgotten what he looked like since the last time she saw him before he flew himself off out-of-state to university, but then she wonders if maybe all during their time together she never noticed how much he had grown.

Text messages and brief Skype chats—she realizes, as she pulls her phone away from her ear—are not nearly enough to capture the same feelings as having Jellal in person, in front of her.

"He-Hey!" she shouts at him, waving vigorously at him from across the distance at the airport.

She can tell that he's spotted her once his eyes brighten, and keeping her heart as calm as possible, she hangs up their call, pressing the red button with her shaky fingers before slipping her phone back into her pocket and rushing over to meet him.

They reach their arms around to pull each other into an embrace—long overdue—but unfortunately her right arm slips above his left arm and her left arm dips below his right arm and well yes, they're hugging each other, but it's a slightly strange cross-stitch of limbs and their difference in heights make it a little more awkward.

Well, she thinks. When have their hugs never not been awkward?

He laughs, as if he's thinking the same thing, and pulls her in closer.

"Hey," he says. "Missed you."

"Me too," she replies immediately

But these aren't the words that really describe the weight in her heart over this past year, the ache in the middle of her chest that she felt whenever she mused about flying over to visit his campus but realizing that neither of them had the time, the disappointment that formed over her face at the end of the online conversations when both of them had to sleep…

"I think…" she starts, "…I think I love you, Jellal."

She feels him stiffen, then feels him pull back, until his face is just inches apart from her face, his eyes locked in an intense gaze with her eyes, his breath stopped in the middle of her breath.

"Me too," he says.

He blinks. He leans forward, and she finds her eyes closing and her shoulders are tense and her heart races and she is nervous nervous _nervous_ because she thinks he's going to kiss her—but then she feels her cheek rest against his chest and she feels his arms wrap around her tighter and when she opens her eyes she can see the individual stitches at the sleeve of his shirt, a strand of her scarlet hair stuck on the fabric, a white puff of something resting on his shoulder, and she realizes just how _close_ she is to him.

And she very very much likes it this way.

"I love you, too, Erza," he repeats, and she can _hear_ how close he is to her because she can feel the movements of his mouth over the shell of her ear. She feels him turn his face in her direction and when she feels his lips kiss the edge of her jaw, she almost _bursts_ and she forgets exactly how un-used she is to his touch reminding her that they are so much more…

She's a little less awkward in his arms now, but as always, everything feels just right.

* * *

sigh. honestly, i don't know what i was planning on doing with this one-shot. there's not really a point to it. it's just fluff, lol. fluff without plot. shame on me.

 **thir13enth**


	2. once upon a time

**notes:** for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **tattoos**. (slowly i'm catching up. i'm determined.)

* * *

 **once upon a time**  
 _They like to make up stories about his tattoo._

* * *

By now, making up stories about his tattoo have become all too common of a nighttime in-bed activity for the married couple, and at this point, it has nearly become tradition.

They lay on their sides on the mattress—he on his right, she on her left—facing each other. One finger of her hand slowly traces the lines of his tattoo and her other hand intertwines with his hand, resting over the graceful curve of her hip.

"He was son of the great King of Alvarez," Jellal starts.

Erza gives him a suspiciously amused look, clearly catching onto how he almost always makes himself a character of royalty.

He smiles and just continues. "And on the day of his birth, the heavens cracked open and the sun broke through the clouds for he, Jellal Fernandes was the chosen one—gifted with the powers of the stars and moon."

Erza rolls her eyes, but she lets him go on, creating this oh-so-great person out of his name.

"Even as a child, his prowess was noted throughout the lands. The prince could summon the constellations in the middle of the day, start meteor showers with a simple will, brighten the night with a flick of his wrist to power the moon.

"His magic was great and he made the king and queen very proud—"

"—but _unfortunately_ his magic came at a cost," his wife interrupts, with a mischievous smile on her face. "A cost the prince discovered on the night of his eighteenth birthday."

The two of them pause, their imaginations escaping them. She looks up to the side, biting her lip and thinking hard. He waits for her to continue, twirling a few strands of her scarlet hair in his right hand, outstretched toward her across the pillow they share.

"That night," she continues, stopping for just another moment before she restarts and gathers her thoughts. "That night, just as the prince went to sleep, a spirit appeared before him.

"'I am Erik,' the sprit announced."

Jellal stifles a laugh at the mention of his office co-worker and at the suddenly deep voice Erza used to imitate the snarky man's voice.

"'What do you want, Erik?' the prince shouted," Jellal then says, entering the dialogue. "'Are you here to threaten my kingdom? If so, I must defeat you.'"

Erza twitches with excitement to finish her thought. She untangles her fingers from his hand to shush him softly with two fingers on his lips.

"'It is not _I_ that is the threat,' Erik warned the prince. 'It is _you_.'

"And with that, the spirit disappeared again."

Jellal furrows his eyebrows. "The prince was confused," he continues, stalling for Erza to fill in the rest of the information. "What could this spirit named Erik ever mean?"

"But then he understood exactly what the spirit was warning of the very next night—a full moon," Erza hurriedly says. "And when the prince saw the white shining moon that day, he felt himself grow fur, big teeth, a tail, and two extra arms. He was no longer human—he was a beast!"

Jellal blinks in surprise—although he honestly knows better than to not expect a story trope—and Erza giggles at the sight of his expression. She waggles her eyebrows, challenging him to finish the story, which he does without missing a beat.

"And he is a very horrendous beast," he thus adds on. "And when everyone saw him, all they could think to do was run. 'A demon is terrorizing us! There's a demon!' they all screamed and yelled.

"But they did not realize that the beast is their very own prince. The prince is very sad that everyone hides from him and throws blessed water onto him when he passes by, and it is really only his own parents that realize that he is their son—because he had a fish-shaped birthmark on his abdomen."

Erza's eyes crinkle into a smile, her free hand—the one not tracing his tattoo—picking at the edge of his shirt before slipping under to caress the skin underneath.

"Your birthmark does _not_ look like a fish," she debates, and after a beat, she adds in a low voice, "And it most definitely is _not_ on your stomach."

Jellal purses his lips, giving her a bit of a sultry smirk, but he continues his story.

"So when the King and Queen realize what has become of him, they decide right away that they needed a way for the rest of the kingdom to surely know that this beast is their beloved son," he says. "And with that, they mark his right eye with a large and prominent red tattoo so that no one would confuse their son with a strange beast from outside of the kingdom."

Erza looks a little bit past him—and he can only guess that she's looking at the clock on nightstand just beyond the bed. She returns to make eye contact and winks at him, a cue that it is getting late and the story needs to finish up as soon as possible.

Jellal messily transitions toward an ending that seems sensible. "But unfortunately for the prince, even though the rest of the kingdom knew who he was, this did not mean that he was not in danger when he went to visit other kingdoms, and one day when he was visiting the great kingdom of Magnolia, he was attacked by the soldiers, who thought that he was a threat in their lands."

"But just before one of the great knights from Magnolia—Natsu the great slayer—" and here, Erza laughs at his mention of her old friend from university "—brought down his sword upon Jellal to kill him, a beautiful scarlet-haired warrior came to his rescue."

Erza gives him a cute smile, face lightly flushing. She chews her lip, her eyes slowly widening, anticipating the end of the story—even if she knows that Jellal's stories end the same way each and every time:

"This warrior maiden nicknamed Titania saved him from being killed and for that he was very grateful to her. While he was in Magnolia, he took her out for dinners and accompanied her where she would go and he felt safe at her side. And even though he was convinced that he was spending a lot of time with her because he owed her something, eventually he realized that he had fallen in love with her.

"And so one night," Jellal continues, "the prince decided to confess this to the beautiful warrior. So in the middle of stargazing, he leaned over to her side—" and here, Jellal tilts his head toward Erza, touching his forehead to hers "—and tells her, 'I love you.'"

And he presses a soft kiss on Erza's temple, holding his lips there for a good few seconds.

Erza closes her eyes to cherish the moment, and when he pulls back an inch, her eyes reopen.

"'I love you, too,' the warrior said," Erza then says.

Jellal smiles. "And the two of them lived happily ever after."

The two of them are content with the way the story went, of course, but there is one critic in the same bed as them.

"Then Dad is still a beast?" their daughter points out.

Erza's lips thin, dropping her eyes down to their daughter, who is nestled between Jellal and her. "Well after they kiss, the prince's curse lifts and he turns back into a handsome man."

"Seriously though, Dad," their daughter whines. "How did you get your tattoo?"

His daughter tugs his shirt, her brown eyes—the same shade as Erza's—demanding a _real_ answer.

She is not amused that _both_ her parents do this every single time she asks about her father's weird eye tattoo. She thinks that they are keeping this all a big secret from her on purpose and it isn't fair.

"And why does your story always end when you meet Mom?" his daughter further asks, as if suspicious and catching onto a common pattern even at her young age.

At this question, Jellal's eyes lift up from his daughter's to Erza's. He gives his wife a gentle smile, thumb caressing her temple, fingers slowly threading through her hair.

"Well," he answers. "How else would my story end?"

* * *

okay yeah, I'm aware that the story within the story sucks, and since that was essentially the entire story this whole thing is questionable, but my imagination went this way and then the words went that way and…well you know the rest. the comments always appreciated. ;)

 **thir13enth** (onwards! to the next prompt)


	3. text messages i never sent you

**notes** : for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **love**.

 **warning:** contains curse words, mentions of crime, court, jail, murder, guns

i don't know what i was doing either.  
and formatting this was hell. why do i even try.

* * *

 **text messages i never sent you**  
 _Everything he wanted to tell her, and nothing that he did._

* * *

 **may 10**

(19:42) hey  
(19:42) i ve been thinking about you a lot

(20:05) and i miss you

 **may 16**

(10:32) i wish i realized how much you meant to me before i was thrown into jail  
(10:34) i'm so stupid, huh?

(10:45) like why the fuck did i do that?  
(10:45) whatever the fuck possessed me

 **may 26**

(13:23) thanks for coming to testify.

(13:57) i know it was hard for you to come out to court.  
(13:57) i know you don't want to remember much of that day.

(15:00) please don't blame yourself for my sentence.  
(15:00) it was their decision  
(15:01) the last thing i want you to be is guilty

 **june 05**

(03:12) i'm sorry for what i did  
(03:14) and i know apologies won't change anything  
(03:14) but i'm sorry

(05:23) you don't have to forgive me  
(05:23) i don't expect you to

 **june 13**

(02:02) it feels like just yesterday since i was sentenced  
(02:02) even if it was just two months ago

(04:54) my sentencing is the only thing i can clearly remember  
(04:56) i wish i spent more time looking at you  
(05:00) i wish i remembered more than just the color of your hair

 **june 14**

(07:34) i couldn't look you straight in the eyes that day

 **august 4**

(16:43) i don't count days anymore

(17:14) i don't really care about the time

(18:29) i used to. but then i realized i didn't know what i was counting down to. to see you again?  
(18:31) i can't predict when that's going to be

 **august 22**

(13:15) lucy told me your family moved away

(14:02) i'm glad you moved.  
(14:03) it's better for you.

(16:38) it's not your parents' fault  
(16:38) or yours

(20:10) this is really all on me anyway

 **august 28**

(03:45) i'm sorry

 **september 04**

(14:53) it's okay if you're scared of me  
(14:53) i know i've done you wrong

 **november 11**

(04:21) was it wrong for me to think that he was going to hurt you?

(05:49) probably.

 **december 20**

(02:41) i was worried about you.

(04:11) you told me before that you felt like he was stalking you even months after you broke up with him.

(05:00) and he was still texting you wasn't he?

(06:16) i guess he can't text you anymore, haha.  
(06:16) forget i said that.

(09:19) murder isn't funny.

 **january 01**

(07:33) i've been thinking about this past year

(08:14) i fucked up so much

 **january 18**

(11:23) i shouldn't have shot him

 **january 19**

(03:04) i shouldn't have done a lot of things.

 **february 13**

(21:58) do you think we could have been something before everything happened?

 **february 14**

(05:23) i should have asked you out. treated you right.  
(05:24) or at least i should have asked you before he did.  
(05:25) maybe that would have stopped this all from happening

(06:20) i think i was just too scared.

(07:05) i'm just a fucking idiot

(09:10) i wouldn't have been a great boyfriend anyway  
(09:10) what makes me think i would have been better than simon?

 **march 03**

(15:19) what the fuck was i doing with a gun in the first place?

(23:08) i can't remember

(00:12) i don't want to remember

 **march 06**

(04:33) it was like i planned to do it all along  
(04:34) god i'm so terrible

 **march 13**

(03:12) i deserve this, you know?  
(03:13) all of it  
(03:15) the guilt, the loneliness, everything

 **march 26**

(04:47) i'm fucked up on the inside

(06:09) i always have been i guess

 **april 12**

(12:38) hey  
(12:40) apparently some people are bailing me out

(13:11) honestly i don't know what's happening. i was just told this morning. but they're working on an appeal or something.  
(13:11) i don't know who the hell would be willing to do that all for me.

(15:03) unless you were somehow pulling the strings.  
(15:05) but i hope you weren't. i would hate if you were burdened on my sorry ass.

(19:55) honestly i don't think i should be given another chance.

 **april 13**

(09:29) it's ultear and meredy  
(09:30) i know them. sorta.  
(09:30) idk what they want from me. i guess they're hoping that i can make a better man out of myself.  
(09:31) something like community sentence

 **april 14**

(19:34) hopefully i can become a better man before i see you.

(21:08) if i ever see you.

 **may 02**

(20:13) i miss you erza.

(21:00) i don't really know where you are right now and it's been little more than a year since i've talked to you.

(23:44) god i miss you.

 **may 08**

(17:46) i hope you're fine, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whoever you're with

 **may 09**

(03:10) i wish i was with you, but let's be real, i don't deserve you

 **may 15**

(09:13) i love you

(10:57) i love you so much

 **may 17**

(02:16) is that even the right word? love?  
(02:17) how can i say that when i've hurt you? when i've completely ruined your life?

 **may 24**

(11:02) i love you

(11:39) i'm sorry

(13:50) i don't know when i'm ever going to tell that to your face. i don't know if i ever will.

(14:07) i hope i do soon.

* * *

yeah, i don't know what this was either. oh well. i let the words go. and the story too ahah.

 **thir13enth**


	4. imaginary

**notes** : for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **haunted**. (for which I had multiple ideas, and probably will end up writing them all up at some point…maybe this week depending on how my life outside of fanfiction goes. this is the shortest one. :3)

* * *

 **imaginary  
** _She'll think of nothing and no one else._

* * *

Even two years after she had said goodbye, he still existed.

The sound of his voice in the long narrow hallways of her home intertwined with the dull tick tock of the grandfather clock; the smell of his shampoo and old unwashed t-shirts wafting from the half-full laundry basket, the feel of his hand tapping her awake in the early morning calling her to wake up so that they could go—

She bursts awake, sitting up straight in bed, clutching her head in both hands, her fingers tangled in her scarlet hair. Her blankets and covers resettle over her legs. A draft of cold winter air rustles between the sheets. Goosebumps prickle her skin.

She frowns. She thought she had tucked him away in spilled ink within the pages of her diary, closed the leather-bound cover over her written words, buried it under other artifacts that she keeps from her past.

She thought that dead could never rise again, but she forgot about the fact that there might be such things as ghosts.

And this ghost is persistent.

He calls her to hang out with her when she isn't busy with her other friends in the neighborhood, asks her to please please _please_ help him do the dishes because he hates getting his hands dirty, makes inappropriate comments while she's watching her favorite TV shows after school, distracts her from reading her favorite books by insisting that _these_ book series are better.

She's tried to listen to her parents. They tell her to expect that letting go of someone is a lot harder and takes a lot more time than she expects.

She shakes her head back and forth. Sighs. Her room is much larger, much more spacy that she last remembers as she was falling asleep the night before.

It's five in the morning. She can seek comfort elsewhere. She _needed_ to seek comfort.

She throws her small feet onto the bare hardwood floor and immediately stampedes to the room right across the hall. She takes no extra time in the dark. Even with nightlights peppering every other socket in her home she can't guarantee that she wouldn't _not_ bump into him.

"Mom! Dad!" she squeals, bouncing into bed, landing between their tangled limbs.

Her mother groans upon her landing, brushing her long hair back behind her neck to prevent scarlet strands from being pulled out. Her father cringes away from her cold feet.

"Another nightmare?" her father's low sleep-groggy voice asks her.

"No…" she tells him, cuddling up next to him, feeling her mother gather her up in her arms and press her back against her chest. She tries to make eye contact with him, but her father's eyes are completely shut tight and all she sees facing her is the tattoo over his left eye.

"It's that imaginary friend of yours again, right?" her mother then concludes.

"Yeah," she answers. "I did what you said, Mom. I stopped thinking about him and I told him that I didn't have any more time to play with him anymore, but I felt him wake up this morning to ask me to go to the park with him!" She frowns, tucking her face into her father's shirt. "He still bothers me sometimes."

"Well you're with us, so he can't bother you now," her mother murmurs.

"Hm…" her father agrees, voice slowly retreating back to unconsciousness.

Hearing him wane back to sleep and feeling both her parents' arms tighten around her, she smiles wide, snuggling further into the comfortable cave between her parent's warm bodies. She knows that they'll talk to her about this when they're more awake in the morning—at the moment, all they can think about is sleep and her.

And so this is all she'll think about as well: sleep and them.

* * *

eh, I feel like this could have been better, ahaha, but I'm writing this in the waiting room of the dental clinic and I need to go in a few minutes, lol.

also sorry, I think this became a **ton** more creepy than it should have been for a child that was still letting go of their imaginary friend. oops. I thought I was trying to write fluff. I'm also fairly certain that by avoiding the use of names, I've screwed myself over.

 **thir13enth**


	5. sixty

**notes** : for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **home**. (something short because life is distracting! sorry sorry.)

* * *

 **sixty**  
 _He's always home to greet her. He always has been._

* * *

"I'm home," she says, every time she walks through the front door.

He looks at her from the other side of the room, welcoming her back with a gentle smile on his face that always tells her more than what she hears.

She returns a smile to him, setting her shoes aside, and she walks into their home. She puts the groceries away—leaving the meat and vegetables for dinner today out—before she traverses the common room to reach him.

His blue hair is now peppered with silver-white hairs, the whole of it faded to a steely gray. He prefers it slicked back and cut shorter than when he was younger. She doesn't comb her fingers through his hair anymore, as she has in the past, but she know his hair is still as soft as she remembers it. She stands in front of him, looking into his hazel eyes to cherish that sparkle in his eyes when he sees her—

but the photo and the glass does him no justice.

The shrine cannot embody, cannot replace him.

"Today would have been our sixtieth anniversary, Jellal," she tells him softly, before pausing and letting the quiet of their home settle.

He has always liked the quiet.

"I'm making your favorite tonight, gyudon," she continues then. "And we're going to get even our pickiest grandchild to have a bite today—just for you."

She smiles then.

Because why wouldn't she?

Death wasn't unexpected. He was seven years older than her, and he had worn his body down. He died a peaceful death—quiet, like he always wanted—and he lived his life full. How much longer did they need together?

A lifetime and forever is plenty.

Home doesn't quite feel like it used to—as when it was one mouth more to feed, one hand more to hold, one voice more to listen to, two lips more to kiss, two eyes more to adore, three more grandchildren to _share_ …

But there's no place else that feels quite like it either.

He is still with her now anyway. She'll join him later in the end.

* * *

idk i tried to do something cool with this prompt. ah well.

 **thir13enth** (side note: death is not always a bad thing. let's try to rethink this automatically negative connotation of it. death is hard, is pain, is insufferable at times but a person's life is not only about the time that they were alive. a person's life is also how they live on. #personalrant)


	6. orbiting

**notes** : for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **warmth**. (mmm I can't help but write fluffy crap this week, huh? more fwp (fluff without plot) for all! this one was inspired by this but it totally turned into something different. still I credit it because otherwise I wouldn't have known what to do.)

this is for **wordslinger** , because…well, she deserves it after a questionable image search

* * *

 **orbiting**  
 _From head to toe, from inside out, I'll make sure you're warm._

* * *

His life revolves around her—his other sun:

.

.

She's still a child at heart, he thinks when she stops in the middle of their walk to scoop a handful of snow from a parked and partly-snowed-in car.

He watches her bare hands cup the snow into a firm clump. She methodically smooths out the edges until the snow shapes itself into a perfect sphere before she presents the ball to him.

"Let's make a snowman when we get home!" she suggests to him.

Her eyes shine brighter than the sun reflecting off the surface of the slowly melting snow.

He smiles. "Yeah," he agrees. "For our first winter together."

She returns an even wider grin to him. "Our new porch won't collect all that much snow," she tells him, determined, with a mischievous plan in mind. "So I'm going to grab as much snow as I can on the way back."

He nods. "Okay." But then he takes her snowball from her wet frozen fingers and temporarily places it on the hood of the car that she previously borrowed snow from.

Before she protests why he's doing what he's doing, he pulls out an extra pair of gloves from his pockets and fits her hands into them. He holds her hands between his hands.

"As long as your fingers don't freeze off, I'm fine with that," he says.

He can't see her blush because her cheeks are already red with cold, but when she sniffs her runny nose against the chilly air and gives him a shy smile, he knows that he's accomplished making her face a little warmer as well.

.

.

The light shining through his eyelids is sharp, and when he blinks his eyes open, he reminds himself of the passing seasons and that the sun is steadily rising—now earlier than he would like on a quiet Saturday morning.

He moves his head away from the slit of sunshine that cuts over their bed, leaving no wrinkle of the covers or the sheets in its path dark—nor her bare shoulder.

Remembering the events of the night before and the fact that they were a little _too_ tired to put clothes back on, he sighs happily and slides his body forward to press his chest against her back, press his nose into her long hair, press his lips onto her sun-kissed shoulder—warm.

She stirs a little—always a light sleeper—and gives out a little mumble that sounds vaguely like his name.

"Good morning," he whispers, voice disused with sleep.

"Go back to sleep," she half-says through her heavy lips, with a quick slurp to keep her drool from falling onto the pillow. She curls into a tighter ball, tucking her arms into each other—the cool morning air speckling her skin with goosebumps.

"Just checking on you," he excuses himself, kissing her again, whatever skin is next to his lips.

Before he closes his eyes, he reaches down to pull up the blankets that have slipped past her curves back up to cover her—every inch of her, up to her head, save the back of her neck.

He keeps that warm with his lips.

.

.

He has a bad habit of falling asleep when reading, and when he jolts awake, it's a little too obvious that the polysyllabic words of the research journal he has been trying to get through weren't exciting enough for him.

He pretends to pass it off, hoping that she's too engrossed with her own book to notice that well, yes, it's only eight in the evening but he's struggling to stay awake—but when she glances at him with an amusedly accusing expression on her face, he gives her an awkward smile.

"Sorry," he apologizes, also realizing that he is completely sprawled over her lap.

He's not sure when he ended up lying face down and flat across the couch, her thighs a pillow for his head, his magazine fallen onto the floor below, but he's not surprised at all that he ended up this way either.

She's very comfortable.

He picks himself up and exiles himself to the other side of the couch to curl into a ball and continue his rest without disturbing her, but she gently urges him to lie back down, a hand pushing him back down on his chest.

"No, stay here," she tells him. "You're warm."

He doesn't debate, and it doesn't take him much longer to fall back asleep—especially as her fingers comb through his hair.

.

.

He only realizes it when he can't find them—even though he leaves them in the same corner of his drawer every single time.

"Hey," he accuses her, catching her by the wrist as she attempts to sneak past him. "You're wearing _my_ socks."

She looks down at the fuzzy yellow-and-red striped socks on her feet, then furrows her eyebrows and pretends that she doesn't know what he's talking about. "No, I'm not. These are mine," she insists. "I have the same color pair, remember?"

"They come up to your knees!" he points out, gesturing down.

She gives him some form of a crumpled smile, as if she's trying to hold down a grin. "Th-That proves nothing!" she retorts, and before he knows it, she's slipped out of his grasp and is running out of the bedroom to escape.

"Hey!" he laughs before following after her.

They end up in the living room, separated by the coffee table between the couch and the TV. She teases his reflexes, bouncing left and right.

"What?" she defends, a guilty grin on her lips. "These are my socks! Don't try to steal them from me!"

He rolls his eyes—and she skips off to the right, thinking he won't react in time to catch her, but his past high school football defense practice kicks in and he tackles her with an embrace from behind.

She squeaks, trying to slink out of his arms, pulling her own weight down. Her socks slip on the hardwood floor and before they know it, both of them are giggling on the floor, entangled in each other.

"You're going to pay for this," he tells her in a soft growl, between playful kisses over her face and arms. She laughs, ticklish, with every kiss, begging him to stop.

"My feet were cold!" she pleads, rolling around on the floor to face him. "I couldn't find my socks!"

"Well are your feet warmer now then?" he asks, flaring his nostrils in fake anger.

She nods, biting her lip.

"Guilty as charged," he thus declares, then pulls himself up. He smoothly lifts her up as well—bridal style—and despite her kicking feet and fists hitting his chest, he carries her back down the hallway to the bedroom.

"I hereby sentence you to bed."

.

.

Understandably, he's been doing much more around the house lately.

She hasn't been able to be as active as she usually is and she needs many more breaks than she's used to taking—most of her time the past week has been spent mostly sitting comfortably in various places around the house, while he takes on the rest of the responsibilities.

But fortunately, he at least knows how to cook.

"Here, have a little more," he tells her, scraping the rest of the curry out onto her plate.

She shakes her head. "I'm full," she insists.

He spoons another bite—more curry than rice, in the proportion she prefers. He holds the spoon up to her lips. "I know," he replies. "But eat more for me?"

She wrinkles her nose. "Why would I eat more for _you_?"

His smile widens. "Fine then," he says. "Eat more for the baby? While the food is still warm?"

She tries to hold her smile, but her lips crack and she grins, her hand resting on her gravid stomach.

"Fine," she agrees.

* * *

yes yes fine. guilty as charged. i'm guilty of writing fluff.

okay actually tbh, I know I said this was fluff, but it kinda carries some melancholy with it. lol sorry, idk, maybe it was the style of the writing.

 **thir13enth**

(wait wait wait! before you go! let me just tell you that **i really love you** for reading this. thank you so much. i honestly write jerza for my own pleasure and it is beyond happiness to know that you enjoy what i'm writing as well. thank you so much!)


	7. horizons

**notes** : for Jerza Week 2016: prompt **scarlet skies**.

this is for **foxydame** , the very reader every writer loves. thank you.

* * *

 **horizons**  
 _Do you know the story of the sunset?_

* * *

Do you know the story of the sunset?

Of the red sun Erza and the blue moon Jellal? Of she who lives among the clouds and the light, and he who lives among the stars and the dark?

In the past, when the heavens were white, they were celestial spirits bound to rule together. They shined bright—the lightest lights of the skies—and they spun around each other, thinking of nothing else but the other. They smiled and gave the Earth energy, and they laughed and sustained the lives they created.

Everything was forever and everything was simple meant to be until a new millennia opened.

Blackness—a sinewy spiral of faulty slipped through the cracks—swallowed the entire galaxy whole. The universe grew cold and dark and unbearable. The Earth grew hopeless and painful and intolerant. The people suffered and unable to see them in that state, Erza vowed to save every single one of them from being enveloped under hazy clouds.

She shone and shone, with a resolve to be the savior for all life, fending off the enemies with her fiery sword and keeping as much of the skies white like they had always been. He shone and shone, with a resolve to always be at her side, serving as her trusted support and promising her that the only future he saw was the same one she dreamed of.

But there was no end to the evil—even after 500 more millennia, even after 500 more wars—and she grew weaker and weaker and dimmer and dimmer—until Jellal decided that he did not want to see Erza fight anymore and rebuilt everything as they knew it. The black will always be there, he realized, and so he chose to take on the black himself, become part of the dark and tame it from the inside.

It would only be a day, he told her. He would be back before the night.

It was a promise he never fulfilled—and only by the time he realized how far he had traveled, only by the time he realized his skin was littered with ice, only by the time he realized that he didn't feel her warmth anymore, it struck him that he should not have left her side at all.

He looked behind him and saw that she was so far away. He counted the years and calculated that he had been gone for too long. He thought of her embraces and missed them dearly and he wondered, he wondered what made him think that this would have solved everything?

Regret turned his white core cold and black.

And that is when he became the moon.

He thought he should apologize. He thought to return to her right away. He worried that she would never forgive him but he thought of nowhere else to go and nowhere else to be.

So he ran.

She thought he was carrying the weight all on his own. She thought he felt he didn't deserve to come back. She worried that maybe he had really just left her after all but she thought of no one else to be with and no one else to go for.

So she ran.

But the universe is a circle and they could only move forward—never back.

They were celestial spirits after all. Nothing is above Father Time.

And time only moves in one direction.

So they run.

And through the seasons they run. Summer—when she runs faster than him, when she runs a little longer in the day despite the trails sweat trickling off her skin, when he stops to take a moment's rest until winter—when he picks up his speed again, when he proves how determined he is to get to her despite the bite of the sharp cold, when she catches her breath, waiting…

Can they be together they thought?  
Can they share the same space?  
Can they hold each other's hands and can they touch their lips together oh so soft?

Yes, they can.

And when they eclipse, everyone watches with jaws open wide in awe, hands at their brows to shield their eyes because together they are so so bright.

Morning follows night, night follows morning, as steady steady as the tides rise and fall, as steady steady as the rain comes and goes. And who knows who is chasing who, but when they meet—as certain as the apple that falls to the ground from the tops of the trees—they make the most magnificent scarlet skies.

* * *

okay yeah so this "creation" story isn't quite as thrilling as the mainstream ones but ahaha I couldn't think of anything else. sighhhh.

so yeah i'd be pretty bad at making a religion.

 **thir13enth**


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